One in seven Irish children aged under 18 who use the hugely popular YouTube website say they often access content which is supposed to be for "adults only", new research has revealed.

More than one in five Irish users aged 13 or younger also say that they have accessed such material at least once on the website.

This is despite claims by You Tube, which is owned by Google, that children under 13 are not permitted to access the website.

It requires individuals seeking to view such material to register with it before doing so, but acknowledges that like other service providers it has no way of verifying the true age of such participants.

The new research, based on a survey of 3,200 primary and secondary school students in five EU countries – Ireland, Latvia, Poland, Holland and Switzerland – found that students most often access YouTube from their own bedrooms, and do so primarily to listen to music.

The research team received a total of 769 responses from Irish students, 93% of whom said that they were YouTube users.

When this group were asked whether they had ever accessed over 18's videos via the website, almost 15% of respondents – or one in seven – said they had often done so.

A further 17% also said they had done so rarely.

Although roughly half of those under 13 said they had never accessed this type of material, a total of 39 others – or 21% of respondents in this age category – said they had done so at least once.

Similarly, in the 13-14-year-old age group, approximately one quarter of respondents said they had viewed material aimed at over 18-year-olds, rising to almost one in four in the 15-17-year-old group.

The key findings of the research were presented at a major EU Commission-sponsored conference on internet safety in London last month.

It was conducted by a group of researchers from Dublin's Anchor Youth Centre.

Project co-ordinator Luison Lassala of the Anchor Youth Centre said it indicated that a "large proportion of under 18's are finding it easy to bypass YouTube's restrictions on this type of content".

"Another key finding was that many simply ignored the safety advice provided on the website. This is something into which YouTube needs to invest more resources," he said.

In response to the survey's findings, a YouTube spokesman said it expressly forbids nudity on its website, except in certain limited circumstances such as educational use.

He said its classification of what it deems over 18's material was particularly strict, and also includes a ban on gratuitous violence or scenes depicting drug abuse.

This type of material is freely available elsewhere on the web, he noted.

However, the spokesman acknowledged that "if you are under 13 you should not be able to access the site", adding that the question of how to successfully verify the age of users is also of concern to the wider online industry.